PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

tphuang said:

I've been following the Ukraine thread. Let's make something clear here. China is not going to invade Taiwan anytime soon. It has its own timeline and own plan to coerce Taiwan. If you've been following their military development and Shilao podcast, you should have an idea of when that is.

I think the plan is to continue ramping up pressure with air incursions and testing air defenses around Taiwan, larger military exercises in East China Sea and South China Sea. Even more training and operations off those island runways in Spratleys. As more J-16s and J-20s join service, they will be able to do more and more around Taiwan and Japanese islands. This achieves PLAAF's goal of improving realistic training, upping operational tempo and completely understanding how Taiwan and Japan would react to PLAAF incursions. Keep in mind that there are a lot of F-35s that will be coming to Japan in the coming years. It's also a great opportunity for PLA to try out there tactics in detecting and then tracking F-35s.

Could China launch an attack on Taiwan right now? Sure, if Taiwan decides to unilaterally change status quo. But China launching unilateral actions would just be too risky. They need to get semiconductor industry and other key industry have domestic supply chain setup. They need to have all the energy pipelines setup and domestic reserves increased so they can fend off long term cut to their trade routes. They need to somehow secure access to all the farming imports they would need. All these things take time.

Click to expand...

When I mentioned in the Ukraine thread the possibility of a looming Taiwan Strait crisis, I didn't mean China wanted to attack Taiwan unilaterally, instead, being forced into a confrontation, most likely in the near future.

Reason #1, the need to punish Russia for its aggression. The west wants to punish Russia with sanctions. But China will most likely soften the blows with its economical dealings with Russia. Sooner or later, the west might want to do something about that by sticking it to China through a Taiwan crisis. China will either has to give in and enforce a harsh sanction on Russia along with the west or suffer the consequences.

Reason #2, Domino Theory 2.0. The current thinking in the west seems to be that the bad guys are winning. Hongkong, Xinjiang and Afghanistan have fallen. Ukraine is in the process, that leaves Taiwan as the logical next target. There will be calls in the west to help Taiwan avoiding the same fate. But any attempt by the west to help Taiwan asserting itself will likely be interpreted as independece movement by China. Which will almost certainly invoke a harsh response from China. Which will almost certain invoke a stronger pushback from the west. Which likely trigger an escalation that makes the whole affair a self-fulling prophesy.

Reason #3, geopolitcal rivalry between US and China. The concensus is that China will surpass US as the #1 economy in a few years. There are some voices in the US calling for military confrontation with China to check its rise, while there's still a gap between the military capabilities, especially in nuclear weapon stockpiles (thousands warheads for the US vs 350 for China). Since time is on China's side, China will try to avoid military confrontation with the US as long as it can. But the US could force China's hand through a Taiwan crisis. Given the current political climate, this voice could get much amplified amidst the US policy makers in the near future.

Since the general concensus is that China can achieve military dominance over the Taiwan Strait by 2027, if the US wants to force China into a military confrontation, the window is pretty much now. Hence, I think there could be a Taiwan Strait crisis looming over the horizon.

P.S. No need to argue with me about the 350 nuclear warheads for China, that's the number the US quotes and most likely the number they will use in their decision making.

US friends?


Friend ship Results

semiconprof said:

When I mentioned in the Ukraine thread the possibility of a looming Taiwan Strait crisis, I didn't mean China wanted to attack Taiwan unilaterally, instead, being forced into a confrontation, most likely in the near future.

Reason #1, the need to punish Russia for its aggression. The west wants to punish Russia with sanctions. But China will most likely soften the blows with its economical dealings with Russia. Sooner or later, the west might want to do something about that by sticking it to China through a Taiwan crisis. China will either has to give in or suffer the consequences.

Reason #2, Domino Theory 2.0. The current thinking in the west seems to be that the bad guys are winning. Hongkong, Xinjiang and Afghanistan have fallen. Ukraine is in the process, that leaves Taiwan as the logical next target. There will be calls in the west to help Taiwan avoiding the same fate. But any attempt by the west to help Taiwan asserting itself will likely be interpreted as independece movement by China. Which will almost certainly invoke a harsh response from China. Which will almost certain invoke a stronger pushback from the west. Which likely trigger an escalation that makes the whole affair a self-fulling prophesy.

Reason #3, geopolitcal rivalry between US and China. The concensus is that China will surpass US as the #1 economy in a few years. There are some voices in the US calling for military confrontation with China to check its rise, while there's still a gap between the military capabilities, especially in nuclear weapon stockpiles (thousands warheads for the US and 350 for China). Since time is on China's side, China will try to avoid military confrontation with the US as long as it can. But the US could force China's hand through a Taiwan crisis. Given the current political climate, this voice could get much amplified amidst the US policy makers in the near future.

Since the general concensus is that China can achieve military dominance over the Taiwan Strait by 2027, if the US wants to force China into a military confrontation, the window is pretty much now. Hence, I think there could be a Taiwan Strait crisis looming over the horizon.

P.S. No need to argue with me about the 350 nuclear warheads for China, that's the number the US quotes and most likely the number they will use in their decision making.

Click to expand...

There's also festering political extremism in the US. They started the populist china hate train but now can't control it.

It's completely possible americans' blind hate for china will push their politicians to cross the red line, like opening an embassy. They recently just passed a bill to rename the AIT to Taiwan Representative Office.

semiconprof said:

When I mentioned in the Ukraine thread the possibility of a looming Taiwan Strait crisis, I didn't mean China wanted to attack Taiwan unilaterally, instead, being forced into a confrontation, most likely in the near future.

Reason #1, the need to punish Russia for its aggression. The west wants to punish Russia with sanctions. But China will most likely soften the blows with its economical dealings with Russia. Sooner or later, the west might want to do something about that by sticking it to China through a Taiwan crisis. China will either has to give in or suffer the consequences.

Reason #2, Domino Theory 2.0. The current thinking in the west seems to be that the bad guys are winning. Hongkong, Xinjiang and Afghanistan have fallen. Ukraine is in the process, that leaves Taiwan as the logical next target. There will be calls in the west to help Taiwan avoiding the same fate. But any attempt by the west to help Taiwan asserting itself will likely be interpreted as independece movement by China. Which will almost certainly invoke a harsh response from China. Which will almost certain invoke a stronger pushback from the west. Which likely trigger an escalation that makes the whole affair a self-fulling prophesy.

Reason #3, geopolitcal rivalry between US and China. The concensus is that China will surpass US as the #1 economy in a few years. There are some voices in the US calling for military confrontation with China to check its rise, while there's still a gap between the military capabilities, especially in nuclear weapon stockpiles (thousands warheads for the US and 350 for China). Since time is on China's side, China will try to avoid military confrontation with the US as long as it can. But the US could force China's hand through a Taiwan crisis. Given the current political climate, this voice could get much amplified amidst the US policy makers in the near future.

Since the general concensus is that China can achieve military dominance over the Taiwan Strait by 2027, if the US wants to force China into a military confrontation, the window is pretty much now. Hence, I think there could be a Taiwan Strait crisis looming over the horizon.

P.S. No need to argue with me about the 350 nuclear warheads for China, that's the number the US quotes and most likely the number they will use in their decision making.

Click to expand...

I agree with a lot of these points. At the most fundamental level, the question that the US/West will be asking itself is:

"Why wait 5-10 years to face an extremely powerful China, when you can do it right now when it is much weaker?"

There are literally millions of mainland Chinese visiting Taiwan every year (before the pandemic). How hard can it be to insert a few thousand soldiers? Assassinating or capturing the Taiwan government is likely. The minimum would be that a beachhead is already prepared before the landing ships even arrive

FairAndUnbiased said:

Agreed that Russian forces are making some mistakes but you also have to realize their political constraints. Russian strategy is artillery based firepower as maneuver. Yet they've been holding back artillery for now and trying to use only PGMs and airpower to reduce civilian casualties.

There was under no such constraints in Iraq either in 1991 or 2003. They used indiscriminate carpet bombing (92% of munitions dropped in 1991 were dumb bombs) and ignored civilian casualties.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

I very much know that Russia has been holding back (artillery, bombers etc.), but it still seems like they made various mistakes and miscalculations (such as how quick they expected to be able to surround the eastern ukrainian forces and the airdrop at the airport right outside of kiev etc.).

And again, right now it doesn't seem like there have been very serious consequences (the russian army also strong enough to 'commit smaller mistakes') but still mistakes. At the very least, that's what I gleamed from reading and following the development, although we're still in the middle of it, so information is far from fully clear.

Minm said:

There are literally millions of mainland Chinese visiting Taiwan every year (before the pandemic). How hard can it be to insert a few thousand soldiers? Assassinating or capturing the Taiwan government is likely. The minimum would be that a beachhead is already prepared before the landing ships even arrive

Click to expand...

Shhh!

People are (logically) emphasising military capabilities because these are what we can observe (how many aircrafts, type, doctrine, missiles etc).

What you are talking about is the shadowy domain where there is a complete lack of information and as such we can't have a serious discussion on this based on hard (observable) facts.

I will just say that it wouldn't surprise me at all if someday Taiwan was captured without a shot

So, let's move on and keep talking about what we can see; J-20, J-16, bombers, EW, carriers etc.

Overbom said:

Shhh!

People are (logically) emphasising military capabilities because these are what we can observe (how many aircrafts, type, doctrine, missiles etc).

What you are talking about is the shadowy domain where there is a complete lack of information and as such we can't have a serious discussion on this based on hard (observable) facts.

I will just say that it wouldn't surprise me at all if someday Taiwan was captured without a shot

So, let's move on and keep talking about what we can see; J-20, J-16, bombers, EW, carriers etc.

Click to expand...

This, also sleeper agents, cells etc. (and like potentially taiwanese generals/commanders turning against the taiwanese government etc.).

Although in the end, hard to say because this isn't something we really can know (it could also be weaker than we think, or stronger who knows ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯, although inserting or having agents/soldiers etc. already 'snuck in' should be expected I suppose).

Overbom said:

I agree with a lot of these points. At the most fundamental level, the question that the US/West will be asking itself is:

"Why wait 5-10 years to face an extremely powerful China, when you can do it right now when it is much weaker?"

Click to expand...

they don't have a choice now thanks to Russia and the 300 new silos finishing construction. They're likely to be filled with a backlog of missiles, I'd guess maybe ~40-50 DF-41s currently held in reserve, with ~20-30 being added every year.

the other thing is to learn from Russia - prior to a major conflict, conduct strategic forces exercises to show resolve.